Genevieve Mary Wagner

Genevieve M. Wagner (nee Griffin), age 99 years, of Sheboygan Falls was called home to be with the Lord on December 30, 2022 at Pine Haven Christian Homes on Haven Drive in Sheboygan Falls.

Genevieve was born on October 18, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois to Patrick and Mary Griffin (nee McNulty).  She was the eldest of three sisters, and attended Maternity BVM parish school and Providence High School in Chicago. While she frequently drove her grade school piano teacher to distraction by not maintaining a rigorous practice schedule, Genevieve could sight read piano music, and frequently played the piano for her family in hger youth as they sang Irish songs and contemporary music together.

Genevieve began her working life at the shipping department of Sears Roebuck before she graduated from high school in 1941, and also attended night school at DePaul University for business classes. In the spring following the attack upon Pearl Harbor, she applied to the US government, and was sent to the Army’s radio signal corp training facility as her first assignment. She also took flying lessons at the Palwaukee Airport northwest of Chicago, with an eye on joining the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) which used female pilots to ferry military planes from factories to airfields, freeing male pilots up for combat missions. The women’s air ferrying program was subsequently disbanded in December, 1944 before Genevieve could apply, but she had logged 35 hours of instruction in the air in a Cub trainer before she abandoned the effort.

Following her stint working for the Army, Genevieve spent several years working for the New York Central Railroad, doing secretarial work and making travel arrangements for various executives. A devout Roman Catholic, she was deeply moved by the “Christopher Movement,” which had been founded after the end of World War II, and which encouraged its followers to bring Judeo-Christian principles to bear on the world around them.

Concerned about the spread of Communism during the Cold War, Genevieve applied to the U.S. State Department in 1950, and was assigned to work in post-war Germany. She spent three years there, much of it working in the secretarial pool of the Allied High Command. Genevieve had long assumed that she would eventually become a nun. However, she caught the eye of a handsome young German, William Wagner, who was working as an auxiliary policeman guarding the building where she worked, and they married in 1954 in Bad Godesberg, Germany.

They returned to Genevieve’s native Chicago, and raised their family there. After the death of her husband William and her sister Mary Therese Griffin, Genevieve moved to Wisconsin in 2011 to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. She settled first in West Bend, but a series of health crises converged upon her beginning in 2018, and she spent the last four years residing at Pine Haven Nursing Home in Sheboygan Falls.

Genevieve greatly enjoyed the greenery and open spaces of Wisconsin, and visiting often with her family prior to the arrival of Covid in the world, which upended the easy access she had enjoyed with her grandchildren and great-granchildren.

Those Genevieve leaves behind to cherish her memory include her two children, Mary T. Wagner (Sheboygan) and William G. Wagner (Llubljana, Slovenia); six grandchildren, Deborah (Barrett) Erwin, Sarah Muehlbauer, Michael Muehlbauer, Robert (Hannah) Muehlbauer, Syler Wagner, and Robi Wagner; five great-grandchildren, Kai, Resse, Eleanor, William, and Marianne, and nephew Thomas (Mary Claire) O’Donnell (Lincolnshire, Illinois).

In addition to her parents, Genevieve was preceded in death by her husband, William; sisters, Mary Therese Griffin and Patricia (Michael) O’Donnell; brother-in-law Michael O’Donnell, and nephew, Joseph O’Donnell. She is further survived by a multitude of nieces, nephews, German and American and Irish cousins, and other relatives and friends.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Thursday, January 12, 2023 at noon at Holy Angels Catholic Church, 138 N 8th Street, West Bend, WI  53095.  Private family inurnment will be at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois at a future date. Memorials in Genevieve’s name can be directed to the Sheboygan County Humane Society.

The family would like to thank the doctors, nurses, and staff at Pine Haven Christian Homes for their care and compassion.

Myrhum-Patten Funeral & Cremation Service has been entrusted with Genevieve’s arrangements. Please consider signing our online guest book (www.myrhum-patten.com) to share your condolences with the family.